Learnt a Few Things Today.
Learnt a few things today: that prunes
are prime movers;
hashi are chopsticks;
that sometimes the least visited blogs
are the most interesting
[ kudos to you, Don],
that it’s as good to stand up, clap, sing
& wave your body about as if you’re at
a rock concert,
& that endorphins are the sacrament
that a higher power has bestowed
on us mere mortals.
Is it okay to take a post down?
I took a post down the other day
but no one noticed,
said anything.
Look, it had its chance.
But no one came up and asked it
to dance.
It slumped, sad and neglected on the page,
loudly weeping.
You can’t have that on a public forum.
It’s like that Philip Hodgkins poem, ‘Shooting the Dogs’.
I had to take it down to the basement,
put it out of its misery.
I just hope no one was watching.
Along the Way
I’ve lost Ed along the way.
Don too.
And Hobbo, of course.
We’ve all lost him.
Blogging friends come and go
like friends in the real world.
But a handful, a baker’s dozen, if you’re lucky,
stay with you.
Your tribe.
Through thick and thin.
Missteps and triumphs.
Five years is not a long time
but they’re always there
sharing their thoughts, their little poems,
their stories,
knowing you won’t be judgmental.
A few drift off for a while
but they come back.
I love their voices in the night,
on bleak afternoons,
on the mornings you’re home alone,
souls you can share your inner life with.
And they listen
*pic courtesy of dreamstime.com
They’ll say, he doesn’t read the books he requests we purchase.
He just flits through them
Why does he even bother?
And I’ll say, ‘coz the book reviews were inspiring
or I read an extract in ‘The New Yorker’ or ‘SMH’,
But when I went to read it I got bored: the characters were flat, the plot rambling, the writing uninspired.
A bit like some of your posts, a snide librarian might say.
My Friday friend once said, I had the attention span of a gnat.
Ouch!
I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I did finish a book a few years ago.
That was a book of short stories. Does that count?
Anyway, they’ll blacklist me soon, and everyone will be happy.
The last thing I do at night
before hitting the sack
is taking a peek,
and the first thing I do in the morning
after getting up
is to sneak another peek.;
the laptop is left on
so I can see at a glance
how many comments I’ve collected
since I last looked;
sometimes I go away with a full tummy,
other times I leave anxious,
afraid I failed to hit the mark,
the old lead balloon syndrome.
I know it’s unhealthy,
it’s not all about numbers
but it’s the performer in me—
you like to hear the applause,
& read the critics in the morning
Who has written these poems ?
I say
as I browse through the pages
of this commonplace book.
I have neglected to name their authors.
There’s one about
Tennessee Fainting Goats
which calls to mind
my ‘Cows in a Paddock’ ;
another about women in a junkshop staring through a window
at the rain
‘where a taxi as yellow as a forsythia
is turning a corner’,
and a snippet about snow over Xmas and New Year
hanging around long after
‘like the drunk at the bar
who needs to go home’
Hmmmm.
Could any of these be mine?
But the one about the fortune cookie is Ed’s.
It’s got his mark all over it.
But the others? I just don’t know.
Could I be that good?
I don’t think so.
Nothing would come.
Constipation of the mind.
So what do you take?
Something new. A photo. Chosen at random.
What to call it?
The Light at the End of the Tunnel.
That’s what it’s like now.
Masks come off just before Easter.
The QR codes are gone except for medical facilities.
It has been a dark and claustrophobic journey
especially for those in isolation.
There;s the Ukraine War.
We are still in the tunnel with that one.
But it looks as if the tide is turning.
Those rigid tracks
but the train of progress has to travel
along something.
O glorious light.
See, you can get something from nothing.
There are protocols for almost everything you can think of:
how to behave on a first date, how to address royalty,
whether to fart in public or hold it in, the etiquette of blogging,
BUT WHAT are the protocols for bon-bon popping?
Over Xmas dinner the other night, we couldn’t decide when;
whether, as I thought, at the beginning of proceedings to start
the evening with a bang ; but my daughters were of the opinion
before the main meal but nonna shook her head, no, no, she proclaimed,
it must be after; we checked the box they came in, in the hope
that the protocols were printed there. Google was no help
nor the shop we bought them in. In the end they weren’t popped at all.
Oh well, we said. Let’s hope we can work it out by New Years’.
Was watching 24 Hours in A & E
where this skater
tore down a flight of steps on his board
then crashing at the end
ending his chances of becoming
a pro
& I thought
we don’t take chances like that in our writing
not really
we don’t face broken bones, torn ligaments
or worse
we don’t face much
what’s the worst?
no one ‘likes’ our post, no one comments,
we put up a post that upsets a few people
it doesn’t get much worse than that
we don’t really risk much
but what if we did?
what would it look like?
what’s the riskiest post you’ve put up?
*pic courtesy of pinterest
John Malone 